Chennai Music Season (CMS) needs a CMS (Content Management System) in place! The overdose of artsy contents, mainly that of concerts, dance performances and other events during the months of mid November to mid January of every new year, has to be better managed to make sense in the long run as to what the real purpose of this season is - which should be, promoting, preserving, and passing on to subsequent generations, what has been handed over to us through our great forefathers.
The ever growing number of Sabhas, dizzying array of concerts and performances in every nook and corner of Chennai main, and suburbs, is simultaneously over burdening the artists and the art lovers.
Be it music concerts, or dance performances, the city’s most established music sabhas, though most of them are membership driven, are also in a situation to attract audience for the performances in their venues, to justify the sponsorships they get. Membership dues and gate collections alone cannot help them subsist successfully, year after year, nor there is any conclusive evidence that these sabhas are run by generous donations of wealthy patrons, whose sole aim is to propagate the art form in pristine pure form to the music thirsty crowd that throng Chennai during these two months.
There are factors such as commercial intentions, esteem in society for the people that run these sabhas, endowment of power that is accorded by being in a power-seat, and other known and unknown tangibles in play.
How else can one explain, that there are nearly 50 sabhas and music festivals that either have their own auditoriums or hire a halls small and big based on their budgets, line up of artists, sponsorships they get, and somehow feel the urge to join the fraternity to bring in music and dance tsunami year after year?
On one side, we have to be proud that our cultural heritage has found rekindled enthusiasm, awareness, and revival through these art forms, especially with the young crowd taking charge and have a commanding presence in the center stage during the season. On the flip side, the poster flaunting, hoardings competing, efforts to bring it to the level of cheap commercial cinema or politics, has certainly brought down the value of classicism of the art form, regardless of who tries to deny it or pooh-pooh it!
For example Chennaiyil Thiruvaiyyaru posters, that appear in every street corner with the faces of popular artists with St. Thyagaraja confined to a corner, are routinely becoming food for grass starving cows that freely roam about in the city roads. Sometimes, they also become the open toilet places for easing the nature’s call for civic sense lacking, shameless junta that cannot wait to reach their respective destinations! What a pity! Is it what we accord to our star artists in the name of marketing? What about St. Thyagaraja? What did he do to deserve this type of treatment, with half of his face in a hungry cow’s mouth and the remaining half, bathing in somebody’s U*&?#E? Do these people that put up posters really lack thought?
Without ramp walks, glittery lights, flashing cameras, there is a fashion show in every auditorium around the city, men and women parading in latest silk saris, ornamented pyjama-kurthas, watching and enjoying, an all dressed up musician singing, ‘Nidhi Chaalaa Sukhamaa? Ramunee Sannidhi Seva Sukhamaa? (Meaning: What gives a lasting happiness - Wealth or the Dharshan or Srirama?), a moving introspection of St. Thyagaraja!
There is an all around indiscipline in performers and listeners. Performers accept too many concerts, some even accepting up to 20 concerts in a month and the numbers are important to decide their popularity and promotion to next slots in the forth coming years in some prestigious platforms and tour opportunities abroad, of course not to forget the judging opportunities in one of the TV channels in some star singer program…! How can a musician give all the concerts, with the same quality or involvement and energy level? Some musicians lose their voice after 2 or 3 concerts. After that it is only a struggle for them and for audience too.
Accompanying artists are all in a way second class citizens. They have to be paid by the main artist and there is no fixed ratio, known to anyone how this is done. There are lots of unwritten, unfair rules allover! They commit to more concerts, sometimes, even on the same day, in places which are literally impossible to hop from one concert to another, without some James Bond movie like antics!!
Is this art form not for personal elevation and peaceful enjoyment anymore? Listeners aka Rasikas, have their own compulsions to show their statistics as to how many concerts they attended, which canteen had best Bonda or Uppumaa, who did how well in which Sabha etc. Most of them have their own subjective opinions based on who has influenced them, and how! Neither have they been through formal appreciation nor do they feel it is needed.
What if there is NOMORE advertisements or sponsorships or they reduced substantially – which is not very unlikely, given the global economic meltdown, and the Doppler taking its own course to reach distant shores, where most people only see IT meltdown still? What will happen to these multitudes of sabhas and their festive series..? How miserable our artists will be, for not being able to be so busy anymore? After all, what goes up will eventually come down and depending how high it went, the fall could be as bad too..! Time to think!
The lecture demonstrations arranged by most sabhas lack scientific rigor. The musicians and musicologists, most of whom don’t have any exposure to science of sound, or a formal experience in scientific experiments, come up with all kinds of archaic texts, without proper interpretations and quote them arbitrarily. Just because the text came from Sarngadeva, Mathanga, Naradha, or some X,Y,Z they don’t attain any unquestioned authority or sanctity. Sentences like “Perivaa pannittu poyirukkaa..” (Elders have done this and left for us!) is sheer escapism. I do see most people come to listen to these lecdems just to nod their heads vigorously up and down, as if they understood everything said. I was only reminded of a YouTube video where the great Dr.Balamurali Krishna records his observations about how different Rasikas react during the concerts. Quite riotously hilarious!
It was amazing to listen to some people speak, as if they were close to all the forefathers of music, watching them writing musical texts, or composing songs. They try fixing, firming their own personal beliefs on what the real music was and should be on the gullible listeners. I truly wonder sometimes, if any of those divine composers had intended the songs to be sung like how they are sung today with so many non-fitting sangathis, neraval (a near mutilation of words), if devotion was the main theme in their compositions! Senior most musician P.S.Narayanaswamy in his lecdem on ‘Semmangudi School of Music”, agreed that was a good question, but said the presentation to a rasika required such things – which did not look all that convincing! But, I have to applaud the conviction that they all have..!
There was a talk about one of the musicians, commenting on how NRI performers have come in recent years, diluting the music season…! If you don’t need them, they why do you go and perform in their venues and undertake multiple trips all over the world? I am sure, this musician is no more called to perform or is really fed up of travels..! The nature of culture is that it has a bidirectional flow and exchanges!
Again this year, another senior musician like T.M.Krishna got into a controversy unnecessarily talking about, how it was only the raga that consumed his attention while singing, not any Gods sung through those songs.…! Why then sing the krithis of those composers which have emotional appeal to many people? To his credit, he is right about what he intended to express, but his expression was wrong. Nobody will listen to a sonless concert or a meaningless, emotionless song, for a long time. This is one of the reasons why instrument solo concerts are not well attended or not that popular. One needs words to emote the feelings appropriately.
Some of these musicians needed to be given the picture of deity ‘Dakshinamoorthy’, the God that teaches by silence to introspect before they talk. Better yet, let them perform, not talk much!
I am also of the opinion, that Carnatic platform need not always be concerned with songs in praise of multi-various gods..! They can move towards secular themes in songs that will fit the current musical structure and concert pattern. When everybody seems to be in agreement that we have to move with times with respect to how the music is carried to masses, we can take it to a step further and change the songs to secular themes. A lot of today’s composers can compose songs that are concert worthy with varied other themes.
May be there will be a better return on investment in the money spent on sponsorships, advertisements, hoardings, and posters, by making a common film song listening men and women come to concert halls by these attempts.
The story of dance artists, and art scenarios, is very different compared to music. Unless they are brand name artists, most artists do pay and perform, instead of performing and getting paid..! At least in dance field, some dancers, after they attain the repute, try and go for, off-beat themes instead of oft-beaten themes. Dance also requires a tight team effort and mandates two or three rehearsals for the performance to go flawlessly. There seems to be dearth of good accompanying artists in this field as these artists also tend over commit themselves and run from pillar to post for multiple rehearsals and kutcheris, sometimes at the cost of coordination of the programs they commit to.
Chennai Sangamam, conceptualized by Kanimozhi M.P. about 3 years back, has taken roots and seems to be a good blend of all major arts forms of the Tamil land. The beauty of this seems to be in the effort to take the arts to people directly with performances held in strategic street corners, in important locations across the city, parks and beaches. In fact this effort should be repeated at each district level to spread this community approach towards arts, which is fast disappearing in urban settings.
Since there is a federation of Sabha’s, it is high time, that they put some ground rules for how the concerts will be conducted, what the minimum audiences size and the minimum economic value of each concert should be, apart from other sensitive subjects like the continuous performance review of all the artists as long as they are in the concert circuit. Rasikas time and earnest interest should be respected utmost. Elevating artists beyond their merits year after year, because who knows who and who can bend better, must be stopped….! I am sure a true introspection by the appropriate body and an iron will to put art above everything else will yield good results.
Before winding down this time, here are a few suggestions…if anybody is listening…or if the readers can influence their respective constituencies.
- Poor performers must be penalized for their performance, the next year by moving them back to their previous slots. Merit should govern the priced slots.
- Lecture Demonstrations must stand the scientific scrutiny and must be supported by research papers and hand outs to participants. Right now, most of them are subjective opinions of individuals as opposed to well debated, supported presentations. There should be sense a pride and value for both presenters and attendees.
- All sabhas should adopt a uniform payment system of making payments directly to the artists instead of giving it through main performer. The current system is demeaning to the accompanying artists.
- Different parts of a kutcheri should be explained to people with Kutcheri 101 type of courses in most sabhas. Some educational material in consultation with senior artists must be put forth for the public to avail and access easily.
- Raga names and Thala names have to be displayed on the LED big screens for everyone to see instead of letting people discuss and come up with all kinds of guesses, not only hampering the enjoyment of, but disturbing others in the process..!
Finally, music is beyond the individuals, an instrument of aesthetic pleasure, and a vehicle reaching a higher plane… If the current practices continue, we are likely to lose the underlying classicism eventually, and the classical music will only reside text books!
